The Power - critical summary review

Are you struggling to make ends meet? Do you wish you were in a happy relationship or are you battling an illness? No matter what you want, there is a simple way to get it - you only have to utilize The Power.

Rhonda Byrne wrote “The Power” as a sequel to “The Secret,” which explored the law of attraction and its effect on our lives. But you won’t need to have read “The Secret” to understand “The Power.” So get ready to learn how to get everything you always wanted.

What is The Power?

Contrary to what you might believe, life is simple. There are only two forces at play: positive and negative, and anything that you experience can be categorized as either. But why is it that some people just seem to attract so much more positive than negative into their lives? Why do some people have great jobs, loving relationships and are always happy, while others are struggling to get through another day?

There is a secret to their success, and that is the power of love. Love is a positive force! Without love, neither you nor anyone else on this planet would even exist in the first place. The love for flying created the invention of airplanes. Without love, there would be no books, paintings, buildings or medicine.  

In every moment of your life, whether you realize it or not, you make the decision to infuse your life with love or not. So even though you may not have realized the power within you until now, everything negative that ever happened to you was a result of your choices - and so was everything positive.

Our universe is governed by invisible laws, such as the laws of electricity and gravity. And one of these laws is the law of love, or the law of attraction: you receive what you give. In that sense, life doesn’t happen to you, but life responds to you, to what you think and feel.

To infuse your life with positivity, you have to start talking about the good things. If you always focus on the negative, such as an argument you had, a person you don’t like, or something that went wrong, you are parroting the negative things. You are adding bars to your cage, locking yourself away from the good things in life. But if, instead, you focus on the good things - the things you love - and talk about those, you attract more good things and you are free to fly.

The power of feelings

You are a magnet. Your thoughts and feelings send off a certain frequency into the universe, which come back to you as the same. For example, if  you are placing blame on someone, someone else will eventually place blame on you. Through the power of magnetization you can influence any area of your life: wealth, health, relationships, your job, or anything else you can think of.

While your thoughts and words are important, your feelings have much more of an impact. Feelings are ever-present. If your thoughts and words are the rocket ship, your feelings are the fuel. Feelings bring power to your thoughts and words.

As with everything else in life, there are good and bad feelings. Your feelings have magnetic frequencies as well, attracting whatever you feel toward you. Good feelings are an expression of love, and since love is the power to change your life, feeling good will automatically bring a change for the better!

So how do you harness the power of good feelings? Whenever you are feeling great, enhance the feeling by “turning up the volume.” Notice the feeling and increase the intensity of it. You can do this by looking at things you love. Byrne says she would always recount all the things she loved to herself before sitting down to write this book.

You should become conscious of your feelings. Instead of simply reacting to what happens every day, be conscious of how you feel about things and take active steps to intensify your good feelings. If you can manage to have more positive than negative feelings in your life, even if it is just 51%, you have tipped the scales in your favor and you will receive more of what you love in your life. 

Avoid using words such as “terrible,” “horrible,” “disgusting,” and “awful,” as they are strong expressors of negativity. Instead, use words such as “fantastic,” “amazing,” or “brilliant,” which express positivity and love. If you can manage to change the way you are feeling today, you change your tomorrow and the rest of your life!

How to use The Power

So, how do you use The Power? There are three simple steps you can take to increase positivity in your life: imagine it, feel it, and then receive it. This is what Byrne calls the Creation Process. 

Step one: imagine. This means imagining yourself with what you want. Imagine yourself doing, having, and being anything you desire. Keep your focus on that image. Then, feel love for what you are imagining. Have a burning desire and wish with all your heart. Both your imagination and your feelings taken together create the magnet that will attract what you want toward you. You don’t have to do anything else.

Always keep your focus on your dream so the law of attraction can work in your favor. For example, if you want to lose weight, all you have to do is to imagine yourself with your dream shape. Imagine what it feels like and stop thinking about what you don’t like about your body right now. The law of attraction will copy what it receives from you.

If you are unsure whether the process actually works, start by imagining something unusual. Byrne tells the story of one woman, who started the process by imagining a white calla lily. She envisioned holding the flower in her hand and smelling it. A few weeks later she was invited to her friend’s house, and there, in the center of the table, was an arrangement of white calla lilies, exactly the kind she had imagined. She didn’t say anything about it, but at the end of the evening, her friend’s daughter plucked one of the lilies and gave it to the woman to take home!

You can use props to help imagine your wish. Do everything in your power to enhance your imagination with pictures, clothes, photographs, and other relevant objects to envision your desire. Whatever you do, don’t contradict your desires with your day-to-day actions, because then the law of attraction will not work in your favor.

For example, if you are wishing for a partner, start setting the table for two. Or if you want new clothes, make sure there are empty hangers and space in your wardrobe.

Keys to The Power

Aside from the Creation Process, Byrne describes several other tools you can use to harness the power of love in your life: The Key of Love, the Key of Gratitude and the Key of Play.

The Key of Love means loving life as you have never loved it before. Whatever love you have felt up to this point, multiply it by a thousand or by a million, and love your life! Love is absolutely limitless, and once you recognize this, there will be no more limits to what you can do. 

To maximize the love in your life, try and find things that you love. Walk down a street and look at all the shops, the trees, the people, and notice what you love about them. Make a list of everything that you love, at least once a month. 

The Key of Gratitude means being grateful. Gratitude is the highest expression of love, so the more grateful you are, the more you are going to attract the life you want. Byrne says gratitude is a multiplier, so if you are grateful for one thing, more of it will come to you. It is not only the act of saying “thank you,” however, but feeling grateful with all your heart. 

You should focus your gratitude not only on the present, but also on the past and the future - on all the things that have happened, and all the things that will happen in the future. No matter how difficult your situation is, there are always things to be grateful for, even if it is just running water - or gratitude for simply being alive.

Finally, the Key of Play. Through creating games with your imagination, you can have fun in life and harness good feelings about it - thereby attracting more positivity towards yourself. The law of attraction does not care whether what you focus on is imagined or real, you can attract what you want through make-believe.

Getting rich with The Power

Let’s look at a practical example of how you can utilize The Power. You can use it to improve your relationships, your health, or any other area in your life that you can possibly think of, but let’s say your goal is to make more money. 

Most people have negative feelings connected with money. They struggle to make ends meet, and making more money seems like an uphill battle. And according to the law of attraction, this is what they get. Even when you earn unexpected money, your general negative attitude towards it means that it will diminish again soon.

Take lottery winners, for example. They use the law of attraction to win the lottery, by imagining and feeling as if they had already won. But many lottery players lose everything after just a few years, and even incur more debt than before, because they did not change their basic approach to money. Money doesn’t stick if you feel negative about it.

So how do you make money stick? The answer is love. You need to feel good about money, and even love the circumstances you are in. You probably don’t like receiving bills. But Byrne says you should never pay a bill when you are not feeling good, because you will only attract bigger bills. Instead, imagine you are donating to a good cause when you pay a bill.

The author’s own experience shows how The Power can literally make you rich. A few years ago, when filming “The Secret,” Byrne was deep in debt, both professionally and personally. One Friday, she decided to withdraw a few hundred dollars from her already heavily overdrawn credit cards. She desperately needed the money to buy food, but decided to give it away instead.

She walked down the street, with a $50 bill in her hand, and watched the people coming toward her. She let her heart guide her in choosing who to give it to. It was the first time she ever felt good about money and the rest of the weekend was full of joy. On Monday, incredibly, she received $25,000 into her bank account from shares she had forgotten she owned.

Final Notes

You have the power to change your life for the better. You can achieve anything you ever dreamed of. By infusing your thoughts, words, and feelings with positivity, you send the signal to the universe that you are ready for positive change in your life.

Both “The Secret” and “The Power” were published to international success. However, be careful not to take the writing at face value. Even though the author often references science, this book is one of many pursuing a potentially dangerous thread of pseudoscience. 

12min Tip

Monitor your feelings when you wake up. Try and look forward to the day ahead and begin your day with feeling happy to attract success.